Billy Wilder’s “Nobody’s Perfect”: Stone as a Transmedia Platform

We have been wondering what words or phrase to put on our Mom’s gravestone.

My brothers huddle at the summer BBQS and have sangria and tell funny and wonderful stories about Mom – but we never seem to reach a plan.When all flags were raised on July 4th a few summers ago, she passed away, the same holiday in which she gave birth to our youngest brother.

As July 4th is fast approaching, the words on Mom’s stone will come up again. It’s not gruesome or morbid, it’s a part of what we leave here on earth. It’s something that will be a part of our lives in transmedia.

Above are the legendary last lines in Some Like It Hot, the classic 1959 movie. It also is engraved on Billy Wilder’s gravestone in Westwood Village, California. Billy was always a stitch in his witty curmudgeony way; I am sure people are still laughing when they walk by his gravestone – the spreadibilityof storytelling even to the grave.

These are some of my favorites….

…Some are straight-forward like Thomas Jefferson; others poetic as in the case of Robert Frost. Then, of course, there’s entertainment. In the case of Santa Claus, perhaps nothing need to be said, or should be said!

Charlottesville, Virginia

Bennington , Vermont

Westwood Village, Los Angeles, California

Westwood, California

I’m not sure where this grave is.

As for me…

…Here were a couple of my friends, Bill Paxton, actor and Robert Harling, playwright, mocking my own death on some other Kirkpatrick’s gravestone. As you can see, I am not enjoying their party….

Houston, Texas

As my friend Rick Conti said in reponse to this blog, “At first glance, considering one’s epitaph seems like a morbid preoccupation. That parting shot can, however, be a reasonable starting point from which we contemplate the essence of our lives. Working backwards from epitaph to life purpose can, in fact, be an enlivening activity.”

Do you have any ideas for your own stone?

Can you sum up your life in a few lines in our instant world?

Have you thought about the impact that might have on others walking by your stone one day?

At first glance, considering one’s epitaph seems like a morbid preoccupation. That parting shot can, however, be a reasonable starting point from which we contemplate the essence of our lives. Working backwards from epitaph to life purpose can, in fact, be an enlivening activity. (If we have no such purpose, why are we at this party in the first place?)

For myself, a desirable (if overly optimistic) final sentiment would be: “Good and faithful servant” per Christ’s parable. It’s what I’d like to be true but so rarely is.

At best, my life might be able to justify the more modest remembrance:

“He loved God and people. Sometimes he made them smile, or even laugh.”